Fact check: NPR gets no direct operational funding from the federal government

[Newsjock]

Source: WBUR Boston

Every time NPR makes a controversial decision, some unhappy people demand the federal government cut its funding.

... Thing is, NPR receives no direct funding from the federal government for operations.

... So while federal dollars do flow to NPR, the connection is indirect. It may be a fine point, but it’s an important distinction. The federal government can’t “defund” NPR. What Congress can do is cut CPB funding — which has diminished over the years and has, at times, been threatened.

But those CPB funds play a minor role for a large-market station like WBUR (around 6 percent) and represents a much higher percentage for a station in a smaller market, such as Wyoming and Idaho.

Calls to cut taxpayer funding of CPB would mostly hurt small stations — stations that played no part in the decision to fire Juan Williams.

Read more: http://hubbub.wbur.org/2010/10/22/npr-funding

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Juan Williams didn't really have much of a role in NPR anymore

anyway. His bland interviews and commentary will not be missed anyway.

[librechik]

2. exactly right--those cons who rail about their tax money going to "liberals"

don't realize that public broadcasting has been under attack for forty years or so, and the first thing they did was force the govt to de-fund them. They've been beating that dead horse along with abortion forever.